TRUTH ABOUT THE AIR RAIDS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXII, Issue 2668, 18 December 1928, Page 7

TRUTH ABOUT THE AIR RAIDS.

WHY LONDON WAS NOT DKtSTROYED. Why did London not' suffer far greater damage at the hands of German Zeppelins during the war? The reason for the abandonment of the German plan for the destruction of London by Zeppelins is told by Captain Ernest Lehmann, the naval architect for the Zeppelins and Director of Air Raids during the war, in his book, “The Zeppelins” (Putnam). “Though we agreed that it could be done,” writes Captain Lehmann, none of us desired to be a party to it. London with her noble building'3 and treasures of art was valuable to us as a precious possession of civilised mankind which we would not destroy without necessity. I never talked with anyone who, realising this, desired ti take a personal part in such a raid. THE TERROR BY NIGHT. “The idea was to equip twenty Zeppelins and train their crews to operate as part of a. fleet. Bach ship would carry about 300 incendiary bombs. They would strike London simultaneously at night. Thus 6000 bombs would be dropped on the city at once.

“Assuming that only a fifth of the bombs took effect or caused fires, that would give London more than one thousand fires to combat at the same time. We agreed that no organisation on earth could successfully fight such a conflagration. We counted on having a third of the Zeppelins shot down, also in flames; but not until after they had dropped their bombs somewhere in the city.”

In any case, the plan would have required the Kaiser’s permission, and from the first day of the war ho had been strongly opposed to raids of any sort against .England. It was only after pressure from his admirals and generals that he finally agreed to the first raids, and then only on the understanding 'that only objectives of real military importance should bo bombed.

“He stipulated,” Captain Lehmann tells us, “that such places as Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and the residential sections should not be bombed, even by accident. I know what the orders were and what it would have meant to me had I disobeyed them.” These orders were given despite insistent public clamour in Germany for the complete destruction of London and other cities. It was what the people expected . From the moral viewpoint they would be justified, they said, because of England’s food blockade against Germany. BREAKING OUR MORALE. The chief object of the raids, we are told ,was the destruction of the Bank of England, and object which, if accomplished successfully, might, in the opinion of the German High Command, throw England’s entire monetary system into confusion, thereby paralysing the auxiliary industries. Other main objects were to infcerfer with the manufacture and procurement of supplies and munitions, to compel England to maintain large forces at home, and to weaken our morale. In actual fact, the British morale was strengthened, but Captain Lehmann considers that the purpose of the raids was accomplisehd more or less .successfully. Captain Lehmann gives some interesting statistics concerning the raids. “All told, the Army Zeppelins made 284 raids and long-distance patrol flights, in the west, east, and southeast . Of that number 188 were successful. The raids in the west, over England, France and Belgium, were less successful 'than those in other sections. Of 104 raids attempted (not including naval craft) only fifty-two were successful, only thirty-six of the army aircraft personnel were killed during all these operations.” A GALLANT DEED. A thrilling story is told of a British flying boat that had unsuccessfully made a daring attempt to destroy the 1/62 at Heligoland. “It had been under fire from both airships and destroyers,” writes Captain Lehmann, “and a lucky hit had forced the flying boat down to the surface . The German destroyers went at it full speed, but the Britisher was too quick and fortunate in making repairs. “One of the aviators, despite the heavy sea which threatened to jolt him into the water, climbed out on top of the engine and mended the damage within a few minutes (a gallant deed). As the first of the destroyers raced up, the flying boat got into the air again and was soon out of sight.”